


this is where we start

by dorenamryn



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Afterlife, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 00:37:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17012193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dorenamryn/pseuds/dorenamryn
Summary: Lotor’s cockpit was a coffin, and Sincline was a hearse, carrying him towards a fiery death within a dimension more nuclear than the stars themselves.or: Lotor burns, and what comes after.





	this is where we start

It was too bright.

The light from the quintessence field was blinding, searing through his eyelids and leaving his vision mottled by flashes of vantablack swirls and white-hot lances of white. He was alone. It was not a fact that surprised him; he knew it would end this way as soon as he’d launched himself at Voltron, as soon as he felt his heart shatter into millions of fractured shards. Since the beginning, he had always known that he would end up alone. After all, it had happened before. This cycle, this endless repeat of listless pain and fermented anguish simmering beneath his skin, this was the only way of living he knew.

And now, Allura had assured he would never know another.

He would never know the familial bond the paladins shared, nor would he know the era of peace that he had fought tooth and nail for. His goals would never be completed, his memory would be left unpreserved, and the steps that he had thrown his life to build would be abandoned, unfinished. The marks he had left upon the world would be washed away, and he himself would be left forgotten and unmourned. This was the way things were, and the way he had long suspected they would be. 

That happy, blissful ending was never going to be his; Lotor knew this fact as well as he knew the back of his hand. Even so, knowing that this was the end, it stung. He had never feared death, but now that he was at its door, that inkling of deep-rooted, instinctual fear formed a hard knot in his chest and held him tightly, leaving him cocooned within its claw-like grasp. His breathing, uneven, hitched in his throat as true, feral panic began to set in. This was the end, and he was alone.

Tears flowing like a river after heavy rain, Lotor jerked forward, eyes widening as they overflowed. Blood roared in his ears as his screams morphed into throbbing, heart-wrenching sobs, his entire being shaking with the effort of holding himself together for _just a bit longer_. Allura, the paladins, they would all remember him as a traitor, not as the man he was, and certainly not as the man that he could have been. There was a heavy tangle of terror and longing building up within his core, a pain running so deep that it was now an irreversible part of his very being. He screwed his eyes tightly shut to avoid the blazing glare of his greatest misadventure, shoulders shaking as he wept. Hands burrowed in his hair as his body spasmed and burned, as if his very soul was being turned inside out.

Lotor was a man forged from anguish, and here it would never end.

His heart _burned_. Rejection echoed in every terror-induced convulsion of his form, and there was nothing he could do to stop the sobs clawing their way from his abused throat, long since hoarse from screaming. Here he was, delirious with unimaginable power, strangled by innumerable waves of pain, and he was never getting out.

Lotor’s cockpit was a coffin, and Sincline was a hearse, carrying him towards a fiery death within a dimension more nuclear than the stars themselves. Half-deranged from sorrow and burning from the inside-out, he opened his eyes, meeting the blistering heat of the quintessence head-on. Vision blurred by a myriad of tears, he groaned as the light ripped through him. There was one thing left for him to do.

“I am sorry,” he choked out, black blotting out the expanse of ethereal light as his eyes began to fail him. He pushed onwards, determined for the last time in his life; “I am sorry that I was never good enough.”

And then, the simmering feeling prickling across his skin ascended to a booming crescendo and Lotor lurched upwards, spine cracking under the pressure and features contorted into a gruesome expression of terror, mouth open in as a blood-curdling scream ripped through his shredded lungs. Limbs spasming, ears ringing, indecipherable words and phrases among apologies and long-forgotten songs tumbling from his cracked and bleeding lips like a broken record even as his vision vanished and the abyss became all he could see.

Quintessence coursing through his veins like wildfire, Lotor felt the weight of the universe pressing down upon his chest, stealing his breath and smothering his seizing lungs until he could no longer inhale, left gasping without oxygen, sightless eyes blown wide with fervent panic and a horror that could only be associated with death. His very bones felt as if they were disintegrating, and maybe they were. Body engulfed by a scorching heat unlike anything he had ever known and ten times more painful, he was awash in shades of red and sorrow, agony burning through his flesh and muscle as every nerve ending was rubbed raw. He could no longer see. He could no long do anything but suffer. 

Lotor screamed and cried, coherency having failed him long ago, the pain eating up his psyche until he forgot his own name, the only thought still present was an pleading repeat of _please make it stop_. He burned and burned and burned, but then, there it was—

Light. Warm, not searing. Comfortable and familiar, as if welcoming him home.

Had he ever had a home? Could he even recognize a home, if offered?

Upon opening his eyes, Lotor realized that he was no longer in his ship. In fact, he was no longer in the quintessence field at all. There was grass at his feet and wind in his hair, and his body was absent of pain.

Furthermore, his armour was gone, and in its place was a soft silken robe, somewhat resembling sleepwear. It was a soothing white, embroidered with a shimmering gold in patterns that he faintly recognized but could not place. Miraculously, his skin was smooth, battle scars and blemishes gone as if they were wiped away by time. Blearily, he blinked the fog from his vision, tentatively raising his head towards the light. And, behold, there it was, in all its glory.

Oriande. 

Vibrant and shining, like it was always meant to be, the steps to the temple bathed in an incandescent, glimmering glow. He took a step forward along the path, then two, then three, his feet moving faster of their own accord until he was at a run towards the temple entrance and out of breath, heart hammering in his chest. Slightly apprehensive, he raised a palm to the large double doors, watching intently as they opened before him.

He was greeted by the same hall as when he came to Oriande in life, but the statues lined up along the walls now held no malice as he traversed the passageway. It was a silent, well-lit path, and he could only gaze in wonder at the marvels in the open hall. 

The next door opened for him as the first, with a light touch and no resistance. He passed through the subsequent corridors like a spectre, quiet and withdrawn, until at long last he had reached the final destination. It was a simple door, like all the others, but this time he knew that it would be different, could feel the anticipation in his bones as surely as he could feel the breeze upon his skin.

With a cautionary inhale, Lotor pushed open the door, and the sight before him made his heart skip a beat, for there she was. Bright and glowing in a courtyard filled with rows upon rows of her favourite flower, a silver fountain twisted in the centre and her back towards him. 

Allura turned around, a tender smile tugging at her lips.  “Welcome home, Lotor."

And it was only then, with her arms enclosed around him and his nose buried in her hair, that he finally allowed himself to breathe.

While Lotor had always been alone in life, in death, there was room enough for two.

**Author's Note:**

> season 8 broke me and now i can't look at pictures of lotor without sobbing my eyes out so i coughed this up to make myself feel better. or something. it's late and this is unedited so if there are any glaring errors then i humbly apologize.
> 
> chat with me on tumblr [here](https://skywclkrs.tumblr.com).


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